Midnight Musings
by SCP2009
Summary: Working through Sookie's thoughts after Book 9. Spoilers for Dead and Gone.
1. Sookie

A/N. I'm not really sure what this is, to be honest. I just finished reading book 9, and was trying to muddle through Niall's words to Sookie. Spoilers for DaG. Your thoughts are appreciated, if you feel like leaving them. (Also, I can't spell. Sorry.)

* * *

_The vampire is not a bad man, and he loves you. _

I'd been bouncing that sentence around my head for two weeks, wondering just who Niall had meant. I was sure it was.... Well, it was either Bill or Eric, that much I knew, and at different moments, which never seemed to settle but kept chasing each other round and round, I was equally certain that it was one, and then the other.

It wast too bad that my great-grandfather had closed off the fairy world for good.

Not that it really mattered who he meant.

Except that it did. For some reason, though I'd only known him a few months, I trusted Niall more in his judgment than I could trust my own, and I found that I really did want to know exactly which vampire he'd meant.

It became my default setting: wondering. I wondered while I showered. I wondered while I ate. I wondered while I worked. I even wondered while I slept, which was a new one on me – and wasn't entirely appreciated; I'd always found respite from my own brain in my sleep. I wondered myself nearly into unemployment.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore; I needed to figure it out.

I showed up on Eric's front door step just as the last ray of sun left the sky.

Pam, after much wheeling and dealing had finally conceded; she'd made me promise to wear a wire – an honest to goodness wire – but she'd agreed to tell me where he lived. I was willing to do anything, so tucking a tape recorder into my jacket didn't phase me in the least. Especially after the week that I – that we'd all – had.

Tray Dawson was dead.

Clancy, though I hadn't been his biggest fan, and vise versa, was dead.

Bill still wavered, stepping closer to Death's doorstep, only to pull away at another infusion of blood.

Eric had been injured. Though it had only taken him a couple of hours to heal.

I was still healing.

I wasn't sure if I would ever be done.

I guess I thought if I could get down to the bottom of Niall's cryptic parting message that I would have a better chance: a better chance at healing, a better chance at being who I was before his fae brethren had hunted me down like a dog. I would even gladly accept the healing to only be a physical one.

I was clinging to Niall's words like my only tether to life, I knew, but it was all that I had left.

Everything hinged on discerning his meaning.

It didn't matter who he meant, it just mattered that I figure it out. Soon. If I left it to fester, not only would I take that final step in loosing whatever sanity I still possessed, but I was pretty sure I would crumble until there was only a Sookie sized whole left in a world that really didn't want me; starting with my heart.

Figure out Niall's riddle, and I wouldn't slowly drive myself mad; figure out Niall's riddle, and I was still Sookie Stackhouse, crazy barmaid, brother to Jason, friend to Amelia. Figure out Niall's riddle, and all would be right with the world again.

I hadn't allowed myself to acknowledge that I actually thought that figuring out who Niall was talking about – and the more I thought about it, the crazier it became; though that didn't stop me – would be like a magical quick fix, a ripple of electricity as the world righted itself.

But then Eric came to the door.

He was wearing only the jeans of his jeans-and-tee combo that he wore so often that I'd secretly begun to think of it as his uniform.

It was so surreal to see him standing there, doing something so human, something that I'd never seen him do before, that somehow it was all wrong.

The house and the lawn and its little garden gnomes were just _wrong._ His feet were bare. Wrong. His hair wasn't loose. Wrong. His expression lacked the very Eric quality that I'd almost never seen him without, his blue eyes were somehow less blue, his shoulders almost slumped. _Wrong, wrong, wrong._

I turned around and walked away.

He let me.

_WRONG._

But I did it anyway.


	2. Eric

A/N Still not really sure what this is. It kind of just kept coming. I think there is more, but I'm not certain how it will play out. Thank you to those who showed interest in my crazy ramblings. Spoilers for DaG.

* * *

**_ERIC_**

There is a moment in life were the second hand stops its incessant ticking. A moment, with its thick presence hanging in the air, when you either take that step forward and act, or watch your life play out before you without a need for your participation.

For the past week, I had been choosing the latter.

The phone call came on a Wednesday. Though I had lost all track of time increments, my calendar told me as much when I bothered to check. I hadn't been bothering for some time.

"Yes?" My voice didn't sound as curt as it normally did. I didn't care. There wasn't a reason to care. She'd walked out of my office a week ago, her blonde ponytail swinging, taking any lingering doubts about my will to live in her absence with her.

"Master." Pam only called me Master in front of other people, for their amusement. Behind closed doors, she dropped the theatrics and went with only 'Sir'.

When I only repeated, "Yes?" in an even more pathetic rendition, she paused long enough for what little interest in the phone call I held to wane, and I hung up.

There was a knock at my door thirty minutes later.

I thought it would be Pam and almost didn't answer.

It wasn't.

It was _her._

Standing in her pajamas, and slippers that had seen better days, it was her. She, who'd crept – despite my ferocious attempts to keep her out – into whatever remained of my heart. She, whose blood I'd had so many times, I could no longer tell were crimson met crimson, but had started thinking of the life that ran through her veins, and that sat sluggishly in mine, as ours. I would never father another child, and she would never bring my seed to fruition, but I had given her something that was a part of me, and it lived on in her

I had always considered it my saving grace. Murder, mayhem, war and blood and death.... All of it had stained me. All of it had ruined me; all of it had made me. But one human had rekindled what had been dead for hundreds upon hundreds of years. She reawakened my humanity.

It started not with a bang, but with a whimper. The first time I'd had to punish an employee for defying me since I'd had her blood in Jackson, my fingers had actually hesitated before I'd ordered Chow to end him.

They hadn't even done that when I'd been human and had been wealding the sword myself.

I had thought it odd at the time, but had chalked it up to her blood itself; it had an intoxicating effect on me.

The next time, I wasn't the only one who'd noticed. Pam had been watching me from across the room as the human offered herself to me, and I saw the slightest quirk of her eyebrow as I refused. My stomach was quivering with hunger; my fangs ached from it. But not for this human. Not for any human but her.

It had grown since then, its beat quickening and rising like an imminent crescendo, sweeping me along, a tiny particle of sand caught in a whirlpool, until that evening a week ago in my office.

Her great-grandfather had called me earlier in the evening to inform me that he would be gone from our world within the hour. I expected her to come rushing, fully of energy and movement and _life_, through my door in just over an hour.

She hadn't. It had taken over two hours; and when she did show up, she smelled of Bill.

We had quarreled. My pride, raw as it was from the wounds that bore her name, hadn't been able to allow my lips to form words that weren't strategically placed. She had flinched at their use, but not before she threw a few of her own.

She was quite the strategist, too, it seemed.

That nigh a week ago, as I stooped so low as to chase after her into the night, yelling apologies I was sure I had never form in my head, much less burst past my lips, was on track to mirror this night exactly.

Though we hadn't exchanged any actual words, the look she dragged from my bare feet to my blond head accomplished the same feeling as if she had.

She'd shown up at my doorstep only to leave as wordlessly as she'd come.

I was suddenly incensed. All of it...the uncertainty, the caring; the _feelings_ she'd bullied into me against my will, had my feet on concrete, then cool grass, as I followed her.

It wasn't going to end like this. She'd come to say something, and she was going to say it; there would be no more of what Pam had called moping. She was, after all, only a human woman. She was not worth this much...pain.

It was pain. Hot, ripping pain.

She must have heard the effort I was making to let her know that I was following her, and she turned around. She caught me with my hands clenched over a heart I was sure was malfunctioning, one bloody tear slowly trickling from wide eyes.

I knew I had cared for her; could remember the time when I'd been cursed and living under her roof when that caring had bordered on something akin to love. But I had never until now felt the full effect of what Bill claimed he felt for her.

It was then, in that moment, that I truly died. Everything that was Eric Northman slipped from my body like water through open fingers. I loved her. As a man loved his wife, and children loved Christmas, as I had always loved myself.

It was pure, and it was real.

And it didn't matter.

In my more serene moments, I had let myself contemplate what would come of a relationship with her, if one ever developed past our mutual enjoyment of our time spent between the sheets.

It had always ended with her death. Felipe de Castro, Sandra Pelt, FotS, human hatred of her gift.... The remaining threats were still very much in play. Being pledged to me had seemed like the only maneuver to keep her safe at the time, but it also meant being dragged further and further into a world that wanted to own her, possess her like a tool to be hung on a belt.

In the end, I let her walk away, watching the moonlight dance across her pale locks, disappearing into the shadows, until all that remained was the ghost of her scent.

The ghost of her.

The shell of me.


	3. Pam

A/N. To answer a question, I'm not really sure where this is going. I guess I didn't really feel that Sookie and Eric were that 'together' at the end of the fae war, and that quite a few obstacles still stood between them. This could be interpreted as an exploration of those obstacles. Or the ramblings of a sleep deprived woman. Either way. LOL :D Thank you for the interest. :)

Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing.

* * *

_**PAM**_

There was no point in letting either of them know that I'd followed her.

The fact that he hadn't sensed me spoke volumes.

She'd been to distraught to notice.

I was very glad for both when he opened the door.

I'd been to his residence plenty of times, but in every single one of those instances, he'd never been less than anything but purely _Eric_. His smile had been present, dancing at the prospect of blood or money, his hair orderly, his feet adorned by shoes. Even inside his immaculate house, he'd always worn shoes.

He wasn't wearing them now. It shook me more than finding him eating vegetables or knitting his own sweater would have.

They didn't talk; I knew that despite her back being to me. When she did turn, to flee, and he chased after her a few minutes later, on feet that looked like they weren't under his command, they were both crying.

I had never seen him shed tears. I had thought he would once but he'd clamped down on it just in time, and the tissues I had awkwardly left on his desk remained pristine and white. Not one had been turned pink by his tears and thrown into the waste basket.

He was crying now. They stood facing each other again, though again, no words were spoken. He flinched and she fled.

It seemed they were always doing that: taking their turns at either flinching away or fleeing.

I had had enough of both.

It had gone beyond my fascination with his compulsion toward all things Sookie Stackhouse, I wasn't shirking my duties at the bar simply to see his reaction to what would play out between them; I cared. About them both – human and vampire.

It struck me that if he was in his right mind, he would have done a little behavior observing of his own as I stepped out from behind my hiding place.

"Eric..." I had never in my undead life called him by his given name. Not to his face. Maybe not even behind his back. I couldn't remember.

I was sorry now that I had.

He reacted on instinct, fueled by the torrent inside him. His clawed hands slashed at the bark of the tree I had stepped out from behind, his eyes burned blue flames of pain and hurt and hatred.

"Eric," I repeated, as her favorite saying floated around in my head, _In for a penny, in for a pound._ "Do you love her?"

Before she'd walked into the bar that night all those months, years, ago, I would never have had to ask him that question: he loved himself, he loved his establishment, he loved money. He cared about many things, myself included, but he was simple and straight forward when it came to deeper emotions. That was Eric Northman. As it was, I was certain I hadn't had to ask now; she had become a part of him, just as surely his voice or his skin or his never ending pride. And just as visible. But that very pride was the reason I did ask now.

Had the deeply rooted pride that made him a good employer and an excellent and profitable Sheriff butted heads with hers, and twisted his perception of his own feelings until he could only name the desire to have, to own, to come out on top?

Had he ever sorted through their tangle of emotions and decided which where his and which were hers? Had he ever slowed in his quest to own her, as he owned allegiances and properties, to discover why he wanted her so badly?

The startled look that now possessed his strong features told me more than any verbal admission could.

He hadn't truly paused to think it all through.

That wasn't like him. He had the most analytical mind of any man or vampire that I had ever met.

But he hadn't considered Sookie from all her angles. But then again, as far as I knew, he hadn't ever loved a human woman.

Desired? Yes. He'd even kept a few as bed mates for extended periods through the years. But he'd never loved them. I hadn't thought it was part of his emotional palette.

I'm not sure he did either.

He answered in a wave of shock and honesty that had never caught him in its grasp; it might never again. "Yes."

He might decide that I had served my purpose at any moment now; as my Maker, he could surely end me as he had started me. But I'd made it this far, and he looked so lost, that I stepped forward and continued. "And our Sookie knows this? You've told her?"

I could tell he was struggling not to pull on his Sheriff hat and order me back to the bar. It was very difficult for him to answer me. I took his prolonged silence to mean no.

I inquired as to his reasons in a language we reserved for keeping secrets from humans.

I thought it was appropriate.

I also thought the transition might catch him off guard enough to answer.

It didn't. His commanding authority slipped into him as he took a breath he hadn't realized he'd taken, and I bowed my head and left before he transferred his gnarled feelings into action against me.

They would just have to figure themselves out on their own; I would let them as long as it did not affect the bar or any other of his assets. There wasn't anything else I could do. I had tried.

It was more than I could say for either of them.


	4. Sookie Part II

A/N: I have some idea of where this is going now. Thank you to those who expressed interest in seeing it play out. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint.

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, just borrowing.

* * *

**_SOOKIE_**

I had driven home from Eric's in tears, only making it safely by the grace of God, and some well placed luck.

It only made me cry harder when Claudine didn't pop up to save me when my tears overpowered my vision and I nearly hit a deer.

The first few days passed in a blur; I'd cried myself to sleep that first night, and woken up the next morning with a resolve to get myself together. It didn't matter who Niall had meant; I loved me. When that didn't work, I threw myself into every chore that Amelia and I had both been neglecting since Tray's death.

I had the cleanest little house in Bon Temps by the time the next week rolled around.

I had also told more lies in that week than I ever had before. Mainly to myself.

Sometime over that week, I didn't know when (repeating the same day over and over again – wake up, remember to eat, work, force yourself to eat, clean, pretend to eat, sleep, repeat – runs yours days together until they are indistinguishable) I gave into the urge to think everything through. Turns out that trying _not_ to think about something was more exhausting than actually thinking about it.

Even when the situation was as complicated as mine.

But that's just it; it wasn't complicated.

Bill said he loved me.

Eric either did or didn't.

I couldn't see why I'd spent so much time going over and over it. It wasn't a multiple choice question – it was either one or the other, yes or no.

It was a bottle of wine I shared with Amelia that finally loosened me up and pried the answer from me.

It might seem like a simple enough situation, but when you factored in everything that had happened in my romantic past....

(It wasn't something I liked to dwell on. The wine helped.)

I'd been hurt – and hurt badly – by Bill. A girl's first boyfriend is a life altering experience.

In my case, it had opened up so many new and wonderful things to me that I had not only never experienced, but that I thought I would never experience. Bill had made me feel whole, and safe, and _normal. _ And then he'd snatched it from me with one heart-wrenching, and forced, admission. Or had maybe snatched it. I didn't know for sure, and it was hard to tell. Did Bill really love me? Was he only pretending? And if he did love me, when did he start? Had it been before or after he'd told me so? Had the only lie he'd told been a lie of omission – the fact that he'd moved back to Bon Temps to seduce me and not to reclaim his heritage? Had everything else been real?

And even if I could forgive him his (maybe) lie(s), I was sure I couldn't forgive him Lorena.

Yes, she was his maker, and yes, he'd had to answer her when she called, but did he have to dump me to do it? Did he really have to throw everything we'd had out the window to protect me, as he claimed? And if he was protecting me from Lorena, was he required to sleep with Lorena to do it?

The fact that the answer to most of those questions was, apparently, yes didn't simplify the matter any.

Go ahead and make fun – say what you want about first loves being exaggerated in their passions, and immortalized, and held up on pedestals – but, dammit, it's true.

Your first love is special, and it is passionate, and it is all consuming. And it's all of those things because your whole heart is in it – it hasn't been broken into too many pieces to put back together and give away whole again, it hasn't been sectioned off to protect itself, like the way they built the bottom of the Titanic so that if one compartment was broken, the rest of the ship would still float.

I didn't like to wallow in self pity, and I always rolled my eyes as hard as I could when I overheard women playing 'Whose Life Sucks Worse', but when you wait nearly twenty-six years to hear someone who isn't directly related to you tell you that they love you... well, it hurts that much more when they effectively take it back.

That is what I decided that it boiled down to: I'd been hurt, and hurt bad, and it complicated matters beyond my ability to uncomplicated them.

Bill had said that he loved me, that he would die for me; and he nearly had. But he'd broken my heart, and the history between us stopped me from being able to just accept his love at face value.

Niall might have meant Eric, and Eric either did or didn't, but because I was damaged, and it would wound me if he didn't – and if he did – I couldn't bring myself to really think on it.

Or even ask him, if the events of the-nigh-I-almost-hit-a-deer were any indication.

I hadn't even been able to sit and listen to Eric's explanation of why he hadn't accompanied Bill to rescue me from Thing One and Thing Two when he'd tried to tell me in his office after I'd been released from the hospital.

He'd tried, and I'd tried to let him, but this overwhelming need to move, to get up and get out, had my toes tingling, and then my calves, and then knees. And then I'd bolted.

Self preservation is a strong, strong thing. When it came to fight or flight, my heart was heavily geared toward RUN, SOOKIE!!! RUN, RUN, RUN!!!

I'd finally figured out my problem – me. It was a simple question, with a simple answer. I was complicating it.

But it still took me three more weeks to get over myself and get my butt in gear and over to Shreveport


	5. Pam Part II

Disclaimer: Charlaine Harris retains sole rights to all things SVM. Just borrowing.

A/N: Am home sick today, so updates will probably keep coming until the meds knock me out. (I know this one is teeny.) Feel free to leave your thoughts if you feel so inclined.

* * *

**_PAM_**

It was raining when she finally walked back into Fangtasia; her black slacks were slicked to her legs, and her white t-shirt had gone see-through. She didn't seem to notice.

He shot me a look like I'd called her with a fake assignment to bring her in. Its intensity nearly set me aflame.

I hadn't; I shook my head almost imperceptibly at him before she trudged up to me and asked if she could talk to me.

"Sure," I told her.

She nodded, though her frown made it look less enthusiastic than it was supposed to.

"It's about Eric," she told me when we'd settled in at a table, her with a bottle of water, my TrueBlood at my elbow. I'd just fed, but she looked so rattled and jumpy that I thought something in her hands would ground her, and she was too polite to accept anything while I remained empty handed.

"Yes," was all that I said. There wasn't much else that it could be about.

Or that I would let it be about.

I could feel him pressing himself against my skull, but I pushed him back. If he wanted to know what she had to say, he'd had ample opportunity to find out on his own.

"My great-grandfather said 'The vampire is not a bad man, and he loves you.'"

"How interesting. And you tell me this because you want to know if he was speaking of Eric."

She nodded, though it hadn't been a question.

"This is not something you should be discussing with me. If you wish to know how he feels about you, you should ask him."

And I got up and walked away.

I could see how she enjoyed it.

I hoped she wouldn't be doing it again tonight.


	6. Sookie Part III

A/N: This kind of came out in a rush - my apologies for any errors. Thanks for the interest, and the thought provoking questions.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

* * *

**_SOOKIE_**

By the time I arrived at Fangtasia, I was back to _needing_ to figure out Niall's meaning. It was my mission. It filled me, fitting itself into very DNA, so that nothing else could enter me.

On some level I knew I was taking the coward's way out.

But, and let's call a spade a spade, hadn't I already decided that I was a coward when it came to these things?

Making a beeline for Pam, instead of tracking down Eric.... It was in character, at least.

But that had been my problem from the get go. I reminded myself of the pep talk I'd been trying to give myself on the way over, added in a little worry and guilt to top it off – I was spilling drinks and mixing up orders to the point that I was about to cost myself my job, and Sam a lot of money – but by that time my mouth had already hijacked the conversation.

It didn't last long; I asked, Pam answered. And then she got up and walked away.

She actually got up and walked away when I asked if Niall was talking about Eric. I had expected maybe a hearty laugh, or a mischievous grin, but watching her move gracefully through the crowd at Fangtasia without another word hadn't really been what I was planning on.

It had sounded like a really great idea, when it first popped into my head, to ask Pam. She had a keen interest in watching Eric when it came to him and whatever feelings he may or may not have for me. I think it was like watching a never before tested scientific theory for her – at least that's the impression that I always got when she delighted in telling him things I'd said that she thought would garner an interesting reaction.

Maybe she had turned her focus and interest on me and was watching from somewhere hidden to see my reaction to her departure.

I couldn't explain it, but I was sure she wasn't.

Maybe Eric didn't love me and she wanted to save me whatever discomfort she thought that that fact would deliver. Maybe he did and she wanted me to hear it from him.

It occurred to me as I was sitting there, that I hadn't ever stopped to figure out if I loved him. Great-grandfather had said his words, and it had started a windfall of thought.

But those thoughts had centered around discovering if he had meant Bill or Eric.

I had never stopped to figure what I felt for Eric. I had wanted to know what he felt for me. It had become the thing that I hinged the rest of my existence on. I was stuck, knowing what Eric felt was the key. If he did, ok; if he didn't, ok – I just needed to know to move. In any direction.

It also occurred to me, quite suddenly, that I had never stopped to figure out what I felt for Bill. I had contemplated his betrayals, and his feelings for me, but I hadn't ever thought on what I felt for him.

But, I realized, I hadn't had to. I hadn't thought about calling Bill nearly every second of the night. I hadn't picked up the phone hundreds of times to do just that, only to wimp out and hang up. I hadn't actually driven over to Bill's house at the first sign of dusk in only my ratty slippers and pajamas.

I just...hadn't.

I could chalk it up to already knowing that Bill said he loved me, while I was still wondering if Eric could.

I think it had more to do with the fact that, yes, I already knew Bill loved me, and therefore could use all my wondering about Eric. There was a lot to wonder.

So I'd spent all my time wondering about Eric and his feelings because it was the unknown, it mattered more to my sanity to figure it out.

If I was honest with myself, it just plain mattered more.

_He_ mattered more.

Because I loved him?

It was a terrifying thought to entertain. Particularly since I'd discovered what my problem was – I was scared to get hurt as badly as I had been with Bill.

Facing down Drainers? No problem. Have a crazy werewolf she-bitch you need me to hug mid battle? Sure, point me in her direction. Want me to drink someone's blood whose been dead for a coon's age? Fill'er up – I'll even take seconds. And thirds. And fourths and fifths.

I could go on. If I was faced with anything that would remotely threaten my heart, I probably would.

With Bill, I was in control. He loved me; I had maybe loved him for an hour or two when he'd lain bleeding, poisoned heavily with silver he'd been stabbed with as the price for saving my life, but I had gone back to being too unsure about our past to move forward with him.

And in my heart of hearts I knew, though Bill loved me, I didn't return that love anymore.

My heart wasn't at risk there.

I wasn't so sure that that would be the case with Eric.

I wasn't sure that that was _supposed _to be the case.

You might think that first loves are perfect, and not having any prior love to compare it to – that's their nature right; a first is a first because it's first? – will probably always make you feel that way. But true love is 'true' not because it is flawless, but because it isn't fake; it is grounded in honesty and respect, not in the falsity of perfection. It perseveres and grows despite obstacles – or maybe _because_ of them.

Bill had been my first... could Eric possibly the real deal, the be all end all?

It was a lot to swallow.

Looking back, it had all been so simple. Niall's words hadn't been more than a passing observation, but they'd touched on the thoughts that I'd been refusing to entertain since Rhodes. And I thought, I guess I thought, that figuring out who he was talking about would be a way around figuring out who I cared for and how much. If I knew who loved me, genuinely cared, than it was safer to allow my own heart to be brought into the mix, too.

The answer had been painfully obvious from the beginning. I already knew Bill loved me, if he was who I was hoping Niall meant, I would have been stuck on that part of the equation; Eric and his possible feelings wouldn't have factored into it one bit.

But as it was, they had not only factored into it, but they'd consumed my every thought and action since the last word had fallen from my great-grandfather's cool lips.

Because I loved Eric.

I think it had taken me this long to figure that out because I had been worried about feeling something that wasn't there because of how tightly Eric and I were bound.

But I'd been my own countermeasure to that one without evening knowing it: I had stayed clear of Eric – I hadn't stepped within a mile of him in weeks. And I still had worried about him, wondered about him, created scenario after scenario staring him. I could always feel Eric when I wasn't with him, but it had never been more than a buzz in the back of my head. It had never been the all consuming symphony of thought that it had been since Niall's statement. Even after we'd been reacquainted intimately, it hadn't been.

It just...hadn't.

I was on my feet before I could talk myself out of it.

I think I had been unable to ask Eric straight out if he loved me because it would have been unfair to ask if I didn't know the answer to the same question myself.

I'd cut and run when he'd opened his door, rattled looking and the definition of disheveled, not because I'd changed my mind about asking, or because I had suddenly thought that Niall had meant Bill, but because he hadn't been himself; he hadn't looked like my Eric.

That probably should have tipped me off about my feelings for him right there. If you consider a person to be yours, you're probably in pretty deep.

It hadn't.

It had, however, taken me two months to piece the puzzle together. And I had only been able to do it after I'd forced myself.

But once the light had gone off, there was no snuffing it out.

I loved Eric.

I was probably more than a little _in_ love with him.

I think I probably had been, a little anyway, since Jackson.

My knees hadn't knocked as I'd walked across the bar to his office. I knew what I had to do, and I was going to do it.

I was cognizant of the fact that timing was everything; my own little eureka moment not minutes ago was the perfect example – remove on variable from it, and I would still be sitting at a table sticky with beer and blood_ wondering._

And it had crossed my mind that maybe the window of time where my actually telling Eric that I loved him, if I could actually bring myself to do just that, would matter enough to change the course that we were headed down now.

Love was supposed to move mountains, but my parents had died, and I had loved them fiercely. Same with my Gran.

I was halfway to Eric's office door when my feet glued themselves to the floor.

I loved him, but at what cost?

The shifter community had just come out and I was a known sympathizer. Everything looked to have gone over smoothly at least in our little neck of the woods, but whose to say that that wouldn't change? I couldn't put Eric in the middle of that.

And what would happen when enough time had elapsed that Shifters and Vampires no longer had to present a united front to the human world?

I was surely to get caught in the cross hairs on that one, if my track record said anything. Eric would be at risk there, too.

And what about The Fellowship of the Sun?

How was a relationship with Eric supposed to play out with them waiting in the wings? They already hated me enough to try and nail me to a cross – literally – when I _wasn't_ dating a vampire.

Both Eric and I would be at risk with that one.

Then there was Felipe de Castro, who probably wouldn't stop until he found a way to bring me to Nevada and put me to good use.

And just because the King had seen fit to let Eric live through the turf war that had seen every other Louisiana Sheriff perish, didn't mean that he couldn't decide to contradict himself at anytime.

I could picture how it would all play out if I took those last few steps.

I would open the door without knocking, a smile playing at my lips.

"_Eric," _I would say, and he would look up from the pile of papers on his desk.

"_I have something to say," _I would tell him.

He would be cranky at my intrusion, and affected by the charged atmosphere the nine hundred pound gorilla in the room was creating.

"_Say it."_

"_Did Bill ever tell you what he overheard Quinn and I... discussing on my front porch the night you sent him?"_

Though he would nod in the affirmative, I'd retell the conversation. _"Quinn showed up.... Well, I'm not really sure why he showed up, but he said some pretty interesting things when he did. He said that I gave you break after break while I held him to the highest standards possible. At the time, I thought he was crazier than his mamma." _I would pause here. _"I've been thinking on it, and now I think he might have been right."_

He would remain silent, probably (wrongly) thinking that I held the tiger to higher standards, but expected (and got, was the implication) less from him.

"_Don't you want to know why?" _I would probably be a little nervous at this point.

"_If it pleases you to tell me." _

"_Because I only wanted to love him. I was trying real hard to, and I wanted him to try just as hard to love me. But he couldn't put me first, and I couldn't love him like I wanted to."_

He would let that settle over him. He was sharp and shrewd, and thought on something from all angles, but he wouldn't come to any conclusions until I had finished.

"_I think if I had loved him, I would have been able to accept his life for what it was; and I think if he had loved me, he would have found a way to give me what I needed." _My eyes would hold his meaningfully._ "You always find a way to give me what I need." _

"_Which is?" _

"_Your protection, your resources, your support – common factor: You." _

"_Why?"_

"_Because you love me. And I let you get away with murder, as I think Quinn was trying to say, because I think, somehow, I knew you love me. I don't have to wonder if I come first with you. I know you'd protect me, I know you'd keep me safe, I know I am a priority."_

"_And?" _he'd ask.

"_And because I love you, too." _

And there it would be. I could see the way he would set down his pen and give me his full attention, the triumphant curve of his lips as I told him, even the subtle movements of his hair as the strands would dance across his shoulders.

But in the end, thought it caused me physical pain, I walked away.

Because I did love him.


	7. Eric Part II

A/N: I think I might start every day off with a decongestant or two. At least where quantity is concerned. This is just one version of the way things could go. I in no way think that things will play out in this fashion, but I was interested in exploring it if they did.

Disclaimer: Same as always.

* * *

_**ERIC**_

This time it was Pam who knocked at my door.

I skipped the normal, more theatrical, "You may enter", and simply went with "What?"

I was angry.

At my desk.

At the pile of paperwork.

At the lamp.

At pens and pencils and books.

At Pam, and the empty space behind her when she opened the door.

There really wasn't a need for it; I had lined my own coffin, now I had to lie in it. I could have altered the situation any number of ways. But they all carried to high of a price.

_Her_.

"Sir?"

Pam had wisely read my mood and was attempting to show me the respect I normally commanded – and deserved.

Normally.

"Child." If it would get her out of my office, I would follow the dialogue she obviously expected.

Maybe it was the fact that she'd noticed that I hadn't fed – or had the urge to feed – from anything but a bottle in over a week.

Maybe it was that I was wearing a shirt I'd worn the last three days.

But she threw me a curve ball. She didn't say anything else, just stood and looked me over.

I was angry at the world for giving me Sookie and then making it impossible for me to have her.

It was a testament to my deflated mood that I didn't feel like taking on the world. Pam would have to do.

We fought. With claws and fangs, we tore into each others' flesh. I ripped out her throat; she removed my left ear.

No one stopped us.

It went on like that, though I was her senior and superior and stronger, for nearly twenty minutes.

When it was over, she had to wait for her larynx to heal to finish her speech, and I my ears to hear it.

She healed first, having fed from a human within the last few hours, but I decided that it would be easier to explain myself – though I hadn't the need – if I couldn't hear myself do it.

I normally enjoyed the sound of my own voice, but I wasn't relishing the prospect of hearing it say this.

Fortunately, I didn't have to.

Pam spoke first.

"I have not lived as long as you have; I have not watched humans and their behavior for a thousand years. But I have known you, and I have watched you. And I have known love; I remember love.

I also remember pain.

But it is not pain that you are sparing either of you."

And then she was gone.

I was getting tired of watching the backs of blonde heads as their owners strode away from me.

But this one had at least sparked an idea.


	8. Pam Part III

_**PAM**_

I hadn't planned on confronting Eric. He was going to do what he was going to do, and no child of his was going to alter that.

I hadn't planned on attacking Eric. Though it is our nature to be swayed by blood and lust and violence, it wouldn't have changed his mind. His mind was made up; there had been plenty of time for him to explain himself to her, for him to make her see that he loved her. But he hadn't.

And he wasn't going to.

His mind was made up.

He was going to do what he was going to do – he was already doing it, there would be nothing that I or anyone else could do to change that.

Though I knew all this, as I watched Sookie pause outside his door, I let myself entertain what I would say if I was going to say something to him.

"_I know you have been trying to show her that you care deeply for her, that she means something to you, for a while now. At some point, you stopped being disgruntled by the feelings that she provokes in you, and gave into them. But you never sat down and sorted through them and came up with a single name for them. The realization sprung itself on you too late, and you hadn't had time to think the consequences through._

"_You love her, but at what cost? Her life? At the very least her freedom, and her job, and her family._

"_Predictable. This is not new; the threats that face you both are not new. And they are not idle."_

It was predictable, and the threats weren't new or idle.

But they'd be there regardless – whether or not three words were exchanged between them.

He wasn't the deciding factor in whether or not she was in danger – she was already in danger. She had already embroiled herself in the shifter world. Her gift alone would have attracted the Fellowship's attention. It also stood to reason that a survivor of Sophie-Anne's reign would impart the knowledge of her telepathy to the new King.

If you took Eric out of the mix, Sookie was still in danger.

The only thing that he was accomplishing by wedging a gap between them was causing them both _more_ pain; and ruining any chance to alleviate it.

It's not the pain he was saving them from, it was the possibility of happiness.

And though I hadn't planned on confronting him, or attaching him, or telling him any of my inner musings, I did all three.

He was going to do what he was going to do, that didn't change, I couldn't stop him.

But as I walked out of his office, I hoped he would do the thing that was right.

She'd rubbed off on me, too, it seems.


	9. Sookie Part IV

A/N: Thank you to those who took the time to read and leave me your thoughts. Much appreciated. This seems to be its natural conclusion. I'm going to bed now. :)

* * *

_**SOOKIE**_

He showed up at my back door four days after after I'd decided that it was for his own good if he never saw me again. (95 hours, twelve minutes, and three seconds.)

I had watched enough Disney movies, and read enough romance novels to have fantasized about a moment like this a time or two. I always pictured it as the most romantic moment of my life – tender, revealing, perfection – but I'd lived through enough over the past couple of years to realize that life went on after the credits rolled, after the last page was flipped.

Real people had to deal with what would happen after the music swelled and the lead male swept you into his arms.

Real people had real problems.

Granted, most of my 'real' problems involved characters that you would find in story books, but that was besides the point.

The point was, that while I'd toyed with a fantasy or two, I hadn't actually expected to see Eric, all six foot five Viking Vampire of him on my back porch in the middle of the night.

I was afraid that if I said anything, that he'd disappear as surely as cotton candy in the rain. I wasn't entirely sure that I wasn't daydreaming, or hadn't fallen asleep at the wheel on my way back from work and hadn't actually made it home as I had thought.

So I stepped aside mutely and let him in.

His shoulders slumped in relief, and it was then that I noticed that he wasn't all there. There were huge chunks missing from his right arm, and his left leg.

His long, golden hair was so stained with blood it was a shade of orange you couldn't find in nature. The damage hadn't spared any inch of his body that I could see, and the deep crimson splotches marring his jeans-and-tee said the same for the inches I couldn't.

"Oh Eric.... What happened?" My first thought had been that I'd somehow been responsible. I probably was, when it boiled down to it. "Come here, come here. Let me look at you."

He sat at the same chair that he had when I'd cleaned his feet after I'd found him running half naked from the witch's curse. I filled the same pan I had then with warm water now, and set it on my kitchen table. He moved to pull his T-shirt off himself, but flinched when his arms rose to lift over his head. I kind of shimmied it up his back and then tugged it over his head without him having to take his arms out of it, so it was awkward, but it worked.

When I had him clothing free from the waist up, I began dabbing a damp cloth against what looked like an animal bite halfway down his torso. Though I knew he would heal without my nursing, I dabbed until the wounds were free of whatever dirt my human eyes could pick up.

It went on like that, me carefully cleaning the jagged tears in his flesh, him watching me wordlessly.

At some point, what with him half bitten and fully torn up, my grand idea of saving him from Sookie shaped trouble by walking away began to look pretty ridiculous.

I probably could have declared my love for him and demanded that he fight every shifter in Bon Temps, all the pot bellied men of The Fellowship, _and_ the King of Nevada and he would have come out looking better than he did now.

"Oh, Eric, tell me you didn't!" I squeaked, because it dawned on me then. No, he hadn't fought all three. But he _had _fought.

And I was betting it was Felipe.

He wouldn't have been this damaged if he'd taken on The Fellowship. At this time of night, he would have slaughtered them in their sleep.

And he hadn't any immediate need to talk to the two-natured, let along with his fists. He wouldn't have broken a sweat if he had.

I had the sinking feeling you get when your hat flies off your head in a canoe and you're too far away to catch it in time – all you can do is watch it drown.I wasn't sure how he'd come out of it alive, or what he had to have done to do it, but I was sure that he had done it.

He didn't answer me. I'm not sure he could; he was as pale as I'd ever seen him, and his jaw hung awkwardly. But he did hold out his hand to me, palm up.

We didn't have a dramatic drag down, neither of us threw a vase.

He'd gone up against Felipe de Castro – alone – and I should be rip roaring mad at him for doing it.

But I wasn't.

He'd nearly gotten himself killed. For me.

We didn't weep, clinging to each other as we both declared our undying love for each other; we didn't even speak.

He'd gone after Felipe, he looked a million times worse for the wear, but he was alive, and that had to mean he'd won, and he was holding out his hand to me, a question in the gesture.

He could have gone gallivanting through my doorway, proclaiming that he'd slain the beast for me and I was now his, free and clear. I would have expected as much from Eric not that long ago.

But he wasn't claiming. He was _asking. _His hand between us, shaking from exhaustion from the battle he'd waged to protect me, and he was asking for my involvement with him.

He knew me well enough to know that I would resent being told what to do, resent being claimed without my permission. Resent having my independence taken from me.

And even though he could read my emotions as if they were his own, and would have known why I'd walked away from him when I had – that 'we' was rife with danger and heavy with the possibility of both our deaths – when he'd eliminated that danger, done away with that threat, he was still asking.

He knew me, he understood me; it's what had attracted me to him in the first place.

It's why I'd fallen ass over tea kettle.

It's why I loved him.

I loved him, and I'd thought the price of that love was plucking him from my life, so that it wouldn't cost us both ours.

But what if I didn't love him? What if I had succeeded in pulling him from me by his roots?

What would the cost of that be?

Everything.

I knew without having to having to work myself up to it over months and months and months, everything.

So I stepped closer to him, settled myself in his lap, and nudged my hair off my neck.

As his fangs drew my blood, entwining his life with mine, I threaded our fingers, linking my life to his.

We'd figure out everything else.

Because with him, there would be everything.

_FIN_


End file.
